Race To Heaven

As I tossed and turned in a drug induced coma, I felt myself drift further and further from my bed.

My body had sunk into the matress and parachuted with the bed sheets into a dark underworld.

It wasn't hell, but it certainly wasn't heaven.

People often speak of a netherworld.

A world in between our world and the afterlife.

It was there I had met ten strangers.

The first and second, a set of twin boys.

No more than eight years old.

The third, an old Victorian woman, dressed in black.

The fourth was a quiet man, with blood soaked clothes and a guilty smile.

The fifth, a british soldier, who seemed plagued by fear and confusion.

Sixth and seventh, was an asian couple. Mid thirties who appeared to have been in some sort of accident. The woman burned horribly, while the man had a broken neck.

The eighth an old indian man dressed in a hospital gown.

And the ninth...

A black infant.

No one seemed to mind much attention to it as it tried to crawl and began to cry.

None of us knew what brought us together.

Nor, knew what to do from here.

Each individual, kept their distance.

The sky began to open up as a man made of crystals appeared.

His voice was thunderous and had caused us to fall to our knees as he spoke.

He had explained that we had passed on, but were far from moving on.

Each infinitias, both heaven and hell contributed in a game.

A game, where five players destined for heaven, and five from hell are pitted against one another and placed in a mind bending race to the afterlife.

Those who do not reach the end will cease to exist.

A life worse than hell.

Only one person could pass on and decide whether to return to their previous lives on earth or to move on to heaven or hell.

With that, the crystalized man clapped his hands together and shattered into a million pieces, seeping into the ground we stood on.

A cobbletoned road opened up in front of us and led to a series of labyrinth like bridges and mazes, with a beaming light in the distance.

We all shivered as the light consumed us and welcomed one another.

There could only be one winner.

Quickly, the nine of us had raced toward our destiny, leaving the crying infant behind.

Something inside of me couldn't shake it as I watched the twins fall prey to their surroundings first.

A land of pillowy pancakes and rain dropped syrup.

They had gone off the stoned path and begun to devour the giant pancakes that had continued to regenerate.

The syrup rained down harder, sticking them to the spongy flapjack.

Both kids squealed as it pulled them under the surface and swallowed them whole.

Everyone remained oblivious, but it was I who watched them in horror.

I returned for the infant who had happened to make it a few feet since we had left it.

I craddled it, as we both look on at our challenge.

The great, white aura everyone was dying to reach.